For a forum that prides itself on trying new things, for the love of all that is novel and interesting, please can we have a new QotM? - Krill

Create an account  

 
[Spoilers] Old Human Tourist: Empress of Azteca

(October 28th, 2014, 10:50)Grimace Wrote: 80% is pretty good odds, I would risk it. I know the RNG can be a bitch sometimes, but sometimes you have to take calculated risks. What are the odds if the chariot attacks your axe? Better or worse? Does that axe have any terrain bonus to defense or anything like that? If so, that might make it worthwhile to wait instead.

Yeah, I'm sure OH attacked out. I haven't caught him in chat, but I would imagine he would already have passed the bad news if we had lost.. mischief I think our axe had 25 % fortify bonus and nothing else, but even if we had had +100 % from city walls+hill+fortify we would have attacked out so that there is a 0 % chance that we don't actually lose the city (as we can block the city with a worker and next turn put real defenders in). Last time Azza ventured out with his 2-movers we killed them immediately, but as OH said this time we were more vulnerable. Based on that incident I actually also assumed that Azza would not build further 2-movers there (OH, can Azza build mounted units at Nothing at all, I don't think so?).

Zzzzzap/Veggies is not a big city and initially we took it and left with light defenses with the thought that if Azza wants to recapture it: by all means, because it means that he is committing resources, which won't disturb us in the north, where holding e.g. his capital was a much more important target. At this point the city already has a granary, lighthouse and a library + it provides gold for our empire --> Now we don't want to lose it anymore and I expect that OH prepares a LB whip and puts couple of real defenders in range to help the city if needed (Azza's 1-movers actually need 3 turns to reach the city and most of them are archers so defending should not be toooo difficult). But as said, I haven't caught OH in chat yet so I'm not 100 % sure whether everything is under control or are we tilting.. mischief lol
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
Reply

Glad he won, then...because I'm pretty sure blocking with a worker doesn't work with an empty city.
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.

I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out.
Reply

(October 28th, 2014, 13:18)Commodore Wrote: Glad he won, then...because I'm pretty sure blocking with a worker doesn't work with an empty city.

Oh, really? I haven't tested it, but I expected it to count as attacking.. Definitely worth simming..
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
Reply

I mean you can't capture a worker after you have killed an enemy unit either (when they are not on the same tile).. I guess we need to put that worker into empty city then.. crazyeye
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
Reply

Turn 153

The Event. I took the great merchant.


In this turn's news dtay's Golden Age finished, Pindicator founded Islam, our Galley only took one hit in defeating Mardoc's Galley and Azza killed a worker with his chariot.


The Axe took two hits to kill the chariot smile.


I got the chance to do a bit of simming of the attack on Green. Given that the defenders bonus is 225% bombarding the walls away doesn't help much. It only improves the chances of winning each battle by about 10%, by which time there would be two or three more Longbows to fight.

So suiciding three cats then gives us this many Knight casualties:

0
1 11
2 111
3 1111
4 1
5 1
6

If we don't suicide the cats then we get:

0
1
2 1
3 1
4 1
5 11111
6

Unfortunately he'll probably add another LB this turn, but I found three more Knights to join the fight, making it nine + a HA. So we should take Green next turn. We should get yet another Great General as well. He could head to Hazelnut to give us 11XP 1-movers or 13XP 2-movers, or he could attach to some of our very highly promoted Knights to give Commando options...


Domestically we've got some interesting decisions at the moment. I think this might be the quickest way for Broccoli to grow - getting 9 hammers this turn lets it whip the granary next turn, then it can take the pigs from Zuccini and grow like a weed.


Again I think getting the granary quicker will let Juniper grow faster.


Domino isn't getting those crabs - dtay is in Caste so he can just keep that tile frown. I guess we just build an SA instead of the work boat?


At Infrared I think we should bulldoze the cottages and just pump units to take advantage of the Military Instructor...


I whipped Izzy, lucky and Zucchini.
Reply

(October 28th, 2014, 13:20)Fintourist Wrote:
(October 28th, 2014, 13:18)Commodore Wrote: Glad he won, then...because I'm pretty sure blocking with a worker doesn't work with an empty city.

Oh, really? I haven't tested it, but I expected it to count as attacking.. Definitely worth simming..
Citation:
(August 1st, 2012, 00:09)Commodore Wrote: Knights are awesome, too. I was checking out Scooter's lower right flank.
[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0665.JPG]

Um. Scooter. Again? Okay, exposure must be appreciated. And embraced. Worker shield? Nope, that didn't work.
[Image: Civ4ScreenShot0674.JPG]
If only you and me and dead people know hex, then only deaf people know hex.

I write RPG adventures, and blog about it, check it out.
Reply

OH:

I'll take a look once I get home, but stuff looks good. So nods from here for your domestic suggestions. I was slightly wondering whether we really want to grow Juniper much at all, but I guess it has some tiles that others can't use and we'll stagnate it at size 4-6. Making Infrared a military pump sounds good, but I think we should only bulldoze (at least at first) the cottages that Troubleshooter and Carrot can't use.

jive for our event/quest luck and finally getting Printing Press (PP brings us close to 50 base commerce of which 15 in our capital IIRC --> the effect should be almost +100 gpt, well maybe 85 is closer). And sure, let's burn couple further knights and finish Mardoc. Btw, these coastal cities probably need real defenders/a real defender ASAP so that BGN does not get bad ideas. He is surely committed elsewhere for now, but I think it's better that he never gets to think that opportunistic city captures/razes are an option.

(October 28th, 2014, 13:59)Commodore Wrote: ...

Aha.. Thanks Commodore, then our assumption definitely was wrong. smoke
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
Reply

Random macro thoughts:
Because speculating about our position is always one of my favorite topics...


1. Economy
Things look pretty good. Dtay has now spent his first 2 GAs and practically for my "C&D" is running 0 % research this turn: he makes 960gpt per turn. That's more or less the same amount we will be making next turn once we have PP finished. popcorn Dtay's war gains are in much more consolidated state than ours (and we still are about to settle/capture 10 new cities unless anything surprising happens).
--> Unless dtay manages to get more land from somewhere (there are no easy targets around anymore, but it's not impossible either) I think we will start gaining beakers on him and reach tech parity/lead in future. Dtay won't enjoy reserching Astronomy either as he is getting quite a lot of commerce from Colossus. He probably can switch into more Representation-specialist heavy economy and just stop working coast in many cities, but it's good news for us anyways.

There are other decent economies out there, but dtay is still commerce-wise our benchmark. I wonder if we can create a position where we will be a full era ahead of players like Krovice/pindicator/WilliamLP, time will tell..

2. Military hammer
Our 12th rank in soldier points is pretty damn low. BGN's power is significantly bigger than ours. shhh Well, this situation is basically the end result of us investing a lot into infra and producing our Azza-Mardoc army mostly in few dedicated cities (Daisy and Hazelnut). Assuming we can manage the clean-up process without too big hiccups and our neighbors don't interfere I'm not regretting this and we should be in good shape for the next phase of the game. Currently it looks still doable, but we'll see.. Anyways I see our military development progressing in 3 steps.

A. Finish Azza and Mardoc before anybody interferes.

- Mardoc's SW cities should fall within next couple of turns and his final city, "Communist", will cause us again some losses (I guess it will have 4-5 LBs by the time we get there), but we have some reinforcements knights and cats joining the party and Mardoc should not have more than 10 turns left in this game. OH, please execute mischief
- After quick healing Azza's southern cities can be taken easily, but we want to have couple of cats that we throw against axes/spears/archers behind city walls so that we don't lose unnecessary knights.
- Finally we finish our continent by taking Azza's Nothing at All in the Northwest. Again the city won't have "real" defenders, but we probably want to throw couple of cats in for efficiency reasons

---> Our standard stream of knights out of Daisy and Hazelnut should be enough for the fights we have left on our continent, but I think we need to sacrifice 6-10 cats (Green-cats not included) in order to things go smoothly. We have already started some of those cat builds and some of them are already ready and can move towards Communist, but I think couple of further cities might need to sacrifice a pop point or two in the coming turns so that we get our sacrificial lambs in place timely for Azza attacks.


B. Secure our continent from our neighbors

- It seems that we will soon only border BGN, Cyneheard, Pindicator & dtay. While I would estimate that everyone of those guys has a well below 50 % chance to attack us even if we run very low defenses, we should take basic measures for diverting their interest in other directions. In practice, as said, I would like to see some of those LBs that we are currently building heading towards west and protecting us from BGN. Cyneheard and pindicator are less dangerous, but we have some semi-vulnerable spots in the north that could use for example a victorious knight as an extra defender once our war is over. Dtay should not be a problem as long as we can keep his city visibility, but if we lose it, there are couple of cities in the east that could display some defensive strength too. Our power graph position should start improving once we stop losing units to Mardoc and more of our planned hammer-cities come online. Our HE city also soon reaches its full potential, which is awesome.

- In a bit longer term we need to think whether we want to defend our continent with land units or navy.. I guess we prefer navy for multiple reasons, but lets try to avoid a cold-war like navy build-up with of our neighbors.. And I don't believe that some kind of minor stand-offs can be avoided and thus grabbing Gunpowder soonish for Muskets is probably worthwhile. Well, I guess we want it soon for Cuirs/Rifles/Cavs too..


C.Build an army for opportunistic attacks / eating a certain neighbor

- In my initial dreams I was thinking that once we are finished with Azza+Mardoc we will immediately turn our heads and go after another neighbor. CH was the prime target, but he collapsed way too fast and now it seems that there might not be anyone who we can punch immediately. However, we definitely want to build a real and potent military and our plans to turn several former cities of Azza&Mardoc into military pumps fits that plan nicely. 50 cities won't likely be enough to win this game and they definitely won't satisfy our dreams of domination victory, so multiple neighbors still need to die.. crazyeye hammer So far we have benefited greatly from Azza-Mardoc conflict, let's hope that there will be another one those and let's make sure that we can actually use our chances. The longer the game gets, the more difficult it is to defend without holes and more exhausted players without winning chances tend to get ---> There will most definitely still be openings, but l would prefer a new conquest sooner rather than later mischief

- Attacking BGN seems currently as the most far-fetched idea considering our neighbor portfolio. Well, I could see us getting a naval edge and fighting over former Dhalphir area (cross your fingers that agent427 can fend off attackers and we get to fight him instead..), but that would certainly create a long long border and a game-long conflict in the west. We don't know enough from BGN's part of the world, but it seems that he has the easiest geopolitical position from all the contenders and attacking his mainland and getting someone strong to join a dogpile seems unlikely at the moment..

- Attacking dtay seems actually from tactical perspective most feasible as we have a nice cultural control of most of our border area and dtay's land is not really practical to defend. There exists a scenario where we take former CH land pretty fast and stalemate isn't established until we have grabbed 10 decent cities. In the best scenario Krovice and pindicator also pile on dtay and dtay does not throw everything he has at us out of spite. In my opinion dtay has a tendency to invest too little in military unless he is planning an attack himself (based on that PBEM where TBS beat him and partly PB13 as well), so despite his strong position this kind of thinking is not completely crazy. Of course as a current tech and food leader dtay has all the possible means to make an attack that much more difficult.

- Attacking pindicator does not seem too attractive to me unless we get a very clear tech edge. Yes, we should be able to control the waters between us and capturing couple of cities is probably no problem. However, I don't see geographically any kind of a sustainable border between us if we leave him crippled so that war would not end until one of us is dead. Let's add here that if pindicator stays focused I have respect for his tactical skills too and he surely can make our life miserable --> as said we really need a big advantage before we can dream about a productive war.

- Attacking Cyneheard is obviously the most feasible option of our pretty untasty set of neighbors rolleye Cyneheard is no pushover, he has researched Guilds already and has a decent position in this game. For geographic reasons it is difficult to organize an efficient surprise attack in the similar wayas my PBEM45-attack on Sareln or our PB13-attack against Ichabod, but once we get Cavalries on board things might be feasible. 20 Cavs, 30 Cuirs and 20 knights ferried over with 12/24 Galleons could be a fun attempt to run over Cyneheard.

Aaaanyways, what we really hope that there will be a some kind of conflict that cripples one of our neighbors and we get an opening. I thing we and dtay are fairly squeezed at the moment and even though we should be both very competitive in the mid-term I have a fear that BGN and Krovice have much more lucrative options available. Also the northern half of this game still has many many civs that would perfectly suit our mid-term expansion plans, but I guess with our current geopolitical luck we are not allowed to complain that we might be semi-stuck from now on. Anyways, when given enough time, players such as William/TBS/GermanJoye/Zanth might be able to reach a very winnable position. Also, CH is an absolute catastrophe from our perspectice in this game :P First he handed his empire way too easy to dtay (based on our limited info) and now it seems that he is trying to open a comeback-door for plako by attacking xenu (based on even more limited info: plako has now taken at least couple of cities from xenu after CH's declaration on xenu).



Heh, I dunno if there are many people out there, who a) are lurking this game, b) have energy to read my walls of text, but in any case here is OH's fairly recent map overview, which should help in evaluation of my thoughts (I doubt that many lurkers can remember how players are located in respect to each other):

Click here for the full 3Mb image, this is a thumbnail. (Is there a better way of incorporating large images?)




EDIT: Now that I'm looking at the full picture again.. Is there any chance we could just fight our way to NW-direction and gradually eat Agent547, Nakor, HAK, AT/Yuris/Bacchus... They are all so tasty and so far away! :P
Finished:
PBEM 45G, PB 13, PB 18, PB 38 & PB 49

Top 3 favorite turns: 
#1, #2, #3
Reply

Oops, I should have remembered that from Cornflakes' adventure 61 thread (where someone described how if you nuke all the units from a city your paratroopers can walk into the undefended city on the turn they drop...)

Better to be lucky than good as the old saying goes.

We're burning three cats next turn but should be finishing enough to take out Azza's cap fairly soon. After green we should really take violet the same turn. Communist might benefit from one or two cats, but shouldn't hold out too long either.
Reply

Oh, and the smart move may have been to upgrade Axe-Mace, but we need that cash for pp...
Reply



Forum Jump: